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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | April 30, 2024 03:26 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Jacob D. Banta |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Preventing executive agencies from re-interpreting statutes enacted by the General Assembly |
| When interpreting a statute, courts must ascertain and effectuate the intent of the General Assembly. The primary source of determining our intent must be the actual text of the statute. However, at times, despite the best efforts of the makers of the statute, there can be ambiguity in the text. In those situations, a court may look to other sources to determine the Legislature’s intent in enacting a statute. In the Statutory Construction Act, the General Assembly has outlined eight such sources of legislative intent, including “administrative interpretations” of the statutes. This violates the principle of separation of powers. Because the executive branch is not the law-making branch of the Commonwealth’s government, an administrative agency cannot opine on the intent the Legislature had when it enacted a statute. Unfortunately, an executive branch’s opinion of the meaning of a statute will tend to be one that expands its own authority. This can be problematic when a citizen is challenging regulatory overreach by an executive agency. My amendment would eliminate this extraneous source of legislative intent and clarify that only the intent of the Legislature should be considered when courts are interpreting legislative intent of statutes. I look forward to working with you on this important legislation. |
Introduced as HB2298